"God, I wish you had never left Adairville." "I know what there is for us to do." "What?" "I'll go back and marry you by Adairville narrow standards for better and for worse, and then we'll have to keep 'em for ourselves when we come back, because we did it knowing what we know, but let other people be broad wherever they are without judging them. I'm going to drop asleep right here on the sand if you don't open your arms." "Oh, good Lord, what did You make women out of?" Mr. Vandeford said in all reverence and bewilderment, as he took the "white flame" to his breast and drew it past her lips until it burned away all the chaff in his soul and established itself upon its altar. After Mr. Vandeford had again delivered his author to the hopeful maid, waiting up for another greenback, he met Mr. Rooney at the desk of the hotel still on his way to "the hay." "Closed up with Weiner to begin rehearsing 'The Rosie Posie Girl' on Tuesday, after we open 'The Purple Slipper' in the New Carnival. Said Hawtry wouldn't sign up until I had signed too. She's got a hunch for me. If you fail, their show goes in in your place; if you win, Weiner shunts John Drew or Arliss out to one of his other theaters on the road, and puts in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.' Good business, eh?" And Mr. Rooney rolled his cigar from east to west and questioned Mr. Vandeford, with a new fire for a new undertaking beginning to burn in his little black eyes. "Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with all cordiality, and not even thinking of his lost thousands. "It will go big, Rooney, and I'll be glad--none gladder." "Sure," answered Mr. Rooney. "It's all in the business. Everybody on Broadway is out to stab everybody else--but mostly it's paper daggers if you take it right." "A tissue-paper world sewed together with tinsel thread," Mr. Vandeford murmured, as he fell asleep with his cheek pillowed on the wrist that Miss Adair had marked in the struggle for her own.